Human workers, managed by an algorithm

August 1, 2012

The latest trend in crowdsourcing is organizing foreign workers on a mass scale to do routine tasks that computers aren’t yet good at, assigned by an algorithm, Technology Review reports.

Several startups, including CrowdFlower and CrowdSource, have written software that works on top of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, adding ways to test and rank workers, match them up to tasks, and organize work so it gets double- or triple-checked.

MobileWorks has its own workflow software, but it’s also trying to solve the incentive problem by recruiting workers overseas, in developing nations like India, where low payments can still add up to meaningful income.

Comments (7)

We are now capable of providing these organizational tools at birth and enterprises are engaged in developing and using these tools from China across Asia and even to Italy as well as in Norht America. To understand more see my work, Fingerprints and Behavior published this year. Would like to make contact with the organizers.

I hope this thing doesn’t evolve into “Manna”, as depicted by Marshall Brain in the eponymous novel – a narrow AI management software that assigns humans to tasks automatically and is given the authority to evaluate their performance, essentially creating inhuman conditions in favor of generating more revenues.

Manna is a great read. I wish Brain got more attention from the singularity/futurist community. He really brings things down to earth. Martin Ford as well. They are really treated as outsiders, maybe because their writing isn’t as full of techno-optimism. Not sure.

As to whether we’ll end up with that particular dystopian situation: If we do, it won’t be for long, because, as the first sentence implies, computers aren’t YET that good at these tasks. But they will be, very soon, through advanced machine learning and parallel computing and the temporary need for these workers will go away, along with the need to control them. Which could itself end up being a good or bad thing.

Best case scenario for unmodified humanity long term is to end up sort of like the Amish, who by and large are left alone by the outside technological culture, use the technology they want to take care of themselves and sell some unique stuff to the more technological culture.

For those who want a more active role in civilization, its going to have to be cybernetics and other types of augmentation.